Someone on a social network forum posted a really great article. The only problem was, it looked like the poster hadn’t gotten permission.

As entrepreneurs, we need to be careful to respect the intellectual property rights of other entrepreneurs, and that includes writers, photographers, etc. It is often not difficult to get reprint permission (I have over 1000 reprinted articles on http://www.frugalmarketing.com and http://www.frugalfun.com, and I have permission for every single one. To simply place a whole article and not get permission or give credit to the source, is an act of theft. If you published a book, you wouldn’t want someone taking your hard work and publishing their own edition.

I’m sure the person who posted was not acting out of malice but of ignorance. Many people don’t think of reprinting an article as stealing, just like they don’t think throwing a toxic cigarette butt on the ground is littering. It’s totally appropriate to quote the first paragraph or two, mention some key points in the article (in your own words), and post a link–or to go get permission from the author.

Let’s not do things that come back to haunt us.

Note: I have posted a whole bunch of articles about business ethics on my ethics site, PrincipledProfit–and yes, I have permission for all of those as well. I’ve also written an award-winning book on success through business ethics: Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First.